Related

The public and social media attention surrounding Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s marital breakdown has created a character debate that will become an “imminently incendiary” election issue, Simon Fraser University ethicist Mark Wexler said Monday.

It doesn’t matter if allegations on social media that the mayor had an extramarital affair are unproven or even wrong. The fact that Robertson and his wife, Amy, did not get out in front of those Internet rumours has exacerbated the issue, according to Wexler.

“In some senses, the problem with any of this is it speaks to character, and that is such a messy thing to fight. Unlike competence or bike lanes — which one can deal with in some senses by mobilizing an argument — character is such a tough thing to fight if people say ‘I distrust him’,” Wexler said. “This is imminently incendiary. It will catch on fire because it goes to character.

“He’s got troubles, real troubles. The reason he’s got troubles now is that people who don’t vote may vote negatively now.”

Wexler’s comments come days after Vision Vancouver and the mayor’s office publicly responded to unproven Internet allegations that the mayor was having an affair. In a joint statement, Robertson and his wife acknowledged they had decided to separate after 30 years of marriage, but described the split as “amicable”.

They categorically denied “false rumours”, and said the separation was instead a “mutual decision.”

Vision Vancouver subsequently released an email it received on June 16 from Non-Partisan Association vice-president Rob Macdonald that made similar allegations, including suggesting the mayor was involved in “philandering”. The party said the email constituted evidence that the NPA intended to make the mayor’s marital problems an election issue, and called on him to apologize.

Macdonald said on Monday that the NPA never had any intention of making the Robertson’s breakup an election issue, and had instead specifically decided against it. He said he wrote the email, a copy of which he also sent to Vision Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs, because he was still angry over threats he said he received from Robertson’s chief of staff, Mike Magee, to expose Macdonald’s own personal issues should he run for the mayor’s office. He subsequently decided not to seek election. Macdonald, who in 2011 was the NPA’s single biggest donor, called Magee “a bully”.

Magee on Monday said Vision had no choice but to get out in front of Macdonald’s rumour-mongering. “It was all just scurrilous bullshit lies,” Magee said of the allegations about the mayor.

The political maelstrom the Robertsons, Vision Vancouver and the NPA now find themselves in is not unique. Politicians around the world have discovered there are limitations to the expectation of privacy.

Former senator Gary Hart experienced that in 1987 when making his second run for the U.S. presidency. He dropped out of the race after the Miami Herald published a photograph of him with model Donna Rice sitting on his lap. Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admitted to having an affair with an Argentine woman after he disappeared from his office for a week. More recently, French President Francois Hollande split with his wife Valerie Treirweiler after a tabloid reported he was having an affair with actor Julie Gayet. It included the president being photographed riding to Gayet’s home on a motor scooter.

Perhaps the most famous case of a politician’s private life intersecting with his public one is that of U.S. President Bill Clinton. His extramarital involvement with intern Monica Lewinsky and sexual harassment allegations by Paula Jones ultimately provoked impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

There are no rules of conduct when it comes to politicians running for office, but there is an unwritten rule in the mainstream Canadian media that politicians’ private lives are generally off-limits unless the person has done something to bring their office into disrepute. This usually means having an extramarital affair with an employee, committing an abuse of office or conflict of interest, or as in the case of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, using illegal drugs and then lying about it, repeatedly.

Hana Callaghan, the director of government ethics for the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said the public generally expects politicians to hold a high standard of conduct while in office. That conduct extends to not making election campaigns personal.

California’s voluntary “Code of Fair Campaign Practices” expects candidates to “not use or permit the use of character defamation, whispering campaigns, libel, slander, or scurrilous attacks on any candidate or his or her personal or family life.”

But Wexler said that kind of rule is unenforceable on the wild west of the Internet.

“You really are dancing on two tectonic plates, and one is moving quite fast and the other quite slow. I think the newspaper as an institution has a higher responsibility to the norms of privacy and a mature recognition that it is possible to separate the private from the public. However, social media largely has no impulse control and consequently it gets there much more quickly, but usually and typically unreliably.

“The public cares about all forms of rumour, gossip and innuendo, and the more licentious the topic (the better). The problem is the more famous you are the more likely you are to be subject to rumour.”

Several members of the local mainstream media that cover City Hall, including The Vancouver Sun, were told off the record of the Robertsons’ separation about a month ago, but no stories were written because there were assurances that the marital problems were private in nature and did not involve third parties or affect the mayor’s job.

However, Wexler said the mayor made a tactical error in not going public at the time, and instead is now the subject of unfounded rumours.

“His problem is that he tried to take control of it in the mainstream media, but he did not try to take control of it in the social media. If he had, he may have been unsuccessful, but he would have fared better than he’s going to,” he said.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Video

Today's News

Best of Postmedia

“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, ‘Come and see.’ And I saw, and behold a white elephant, and he that sat upon him had a crown, which he wore atop his fiery hair, and […]

Millennials, amirite? They’re nothing but Instagram-happy, emoji-LOL-ing, mannequin-challenging navelgazers. Or so the theory goes. How can they put their pants on one leg at a time, like everyone else, when they’re sausaged into skinny jeans? Yet when it comes to […]

An Ottawa judge has thrown out a romance fraud case that has taken more than four years to go to trial, ruling that the excessive delay has robbed the accused man of his right to a fair trial. Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips on Friday stayed the case against Kevin Bishop of Ottawa, who had […]

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.